The History of Xinning Railway

During the period of Guang Xu Year in Qing Dynasty, there was a railway which passed through Xinning county, reaching Xinhui and Beijie. It was Xinning Railway which was one of privately built railways in China . Chen Yi Xi, an overseas Chinese residing in America was the founder of this railway. He was one of the most important people in Taishan's traffic development history because of his contribution.

Chen Yi Xi, was born in Langmei village, Doushan town on June 22, 1844 . When he was young, his family was so poor that he had to make a living by selling coil rope , needle and button. In 1864, he worked as cleaner and railroad building worker at the railway station in Seattle, U.S.A.

Once, Chinese railroad workers suffered the native's attack, and their temporary residences were set on fire to burn. Chen Yi Xi required the U.S. government to compensate. He collected information of Chinese worker's loss, appealling to railway company and the U.S. government; at the same time sent a telegram to Li Hongzhang and demanded him to carry on negotiations to the U.S. government.. Chinese workers were overjoyed after receiving the damages fee. From then on, Chen YiXi enjoyed high reputation among the overseas Chinese, and became the leader of them.

Chen YiXi had been engaged in the work of railway for more than 40 years , with abundant experience. He was inspired from the fact that the American building railway of west promoted the urban construction and economic prosperity ,and make the great aspiration to build railway of the motherland. In 1904 , Chen YiXi got back to hometown ,and proposed to build Xinning railway. This plan got support from county people, the preparatory department is established on June 1904. Chen YiXi was a co-director, and Yu Zhuo assisted in the management.In 1905 Chen YiXi returned to China, raised capital from fellow Taishan natives living in the United States and set about building his railway.He collected the capital of 1,500,000 silver yuan in half a year. Meanwhile,Yu Zhuo raised capital stock in county and Guangdong province, Hong Kong, Singapore and other places; By the end of the year , By the end of 1905, they had a total of 2,758,412 yuan. In October, the Xinning railway Company was established formally,

Chen Yixi vowed not to sell shares to foreigners, to borrow money from them, or to use their engineers. He hoped that wealthy Chinese merchants, gentry, and other Chinese investors in China, the U.S., and Hong Kong would supply the capital and technology in order not to divert rights and profits to foreigners. His proposal received overwhelming support from the local people and Toisanese emigrants abroad.

During the process of raising and building the Xinning railway , Chen Yi Xi had met very heavy obstruction.In the case of the Sunning Railway, the magistrate tried to usurp credit for organising the company by substituting his proposal for the original one submitted to the Commerce Department by Chin's associates. Other attempts to gain the right to build the railway, to control its route, and to extort money were made by a number of gentry-officials throughout the process. Because of the advantageous position held by the bureaucrats, Chin eventually bought an official title to gain access to the bureaucracy and to rally support from the gentry. The Chinese in America also appealed on Chin's behalf to the Qing emissary Liang Cheng. Finally, after more than a year's struggle, the government issued the permit.

Powerful clans often feuded with one another over the route, or prevented the railway from passing through their territory because of superstitions. Wherever the rails went, fighting ensued. During the process of construction, over a hundred riots were staged by local landlord forces. The company was forced to change its planned route and add thirty-nine unnecessary turns, thus affecting the speed and safety of the trains, as well as increasing considerably the cost of construction.

The line was built in stages over a period of some 15 years, commencing with the first section of 15 miles from Gongyi to Taishan, which opened in January 1908. The line reached Doushan in 1909 which saw the official opening of the then 54-mile railway. In 1913 it was extended a further 26 miles to Beijie of Jiangmen city and finally a 21-mile branch line was constructed from Taishan to Baisha in 1920. The Xinning Railway was a privately built railway line which existed in Guangdong Province between 1906 and 1939. It was a standard gauge line built on American principles and mainly used rolling stock purchased from the United States, although three tank locomotives were known to have come from Germany. The railway was unusual in that it was planned, financed and constructed solely by private Chinese interests at a time when most railway development in China was dominated by the powerful European nations.

In 1924, Chen Yi Xi raised the tentative plan of opening up Tonggu Commercial Port. At that time, the terminus station of Xinning Railway was at Doushan Town in which only 40 miles away to Tonggu port. wanted to build a railway to connect Tonggu and Xinning Railway, then to extend another side of Xinning Railway to Foshan through which could reach Guangzhou and domestic mainland. He also wanted to stretch the railway on the west through Yangjiang and the west of Guangdong, then connected with Leizhou peninsula, so as to form a traffic network of the southwest of Guangdong. It was a pity that Hi-Chen couldn't realize his dream in that turbulent situation.

In 1927, the government took over the management of the railroad over the protests of Chin and others. For two years, factions within the government fought with each other for control of the company. Finally, in 1929, the government decided that it was too burdensome to manage and returned it to civilian operation.

The railroad was destroyed in Anti-Japanese War. In December 1938 , it was dismantled to deter the Japanese military forces.The Japanese army occupied Toisan several times, and except for the 23,782 rails that were shipped to Guangxi in 1942 to build the Qianguei Railway, the Sunning Railway assets, which were worth over three million yuan, were all carried off by the Japanese.